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The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Disclaimer: If one does not find it fascinating to read walls of text in the name of Science & Magic, they should turn back now while it is still possible!

Introduction to Magic Mouth Plus

So, "The Arcane Programmer", is it some kind of new homebrew class corresponding to UA's futuristic options, or what? No, it's just an informed use of a very low-level spell or two! Because the best freedom is to be able to do something at any campaign, at any time. As an added bonus, this will also take what is often seen as one of the more useless or extremely circumstantial flavor spells due to it's wording, you guessed it - "Magic Mouth", and turn it into something almost indispensable in every caster's arsenal, something that allows for creative choice, something that probably nobody ever thought it could be. In fact, this doesn't just pertain to your character. It also pertains to your party, and especially to your DM, since it has the potential of changing the campaign world, by ushering a mini digital/communications revolution.

As the title implies, we're going to be doing some "programming", in DND. Before getting to that though, let's review what's going to be relevant for us within the spell description's in full, to reference in the upcoming chapters. In fact before beginning to read this, it is advisable that you open up the spell's description, and slowly go over every word. But I'll highlight what's most important, along with some commentary ( If you're confident that every single word is crystal clear to you, skip ahead over this, but keep in mind that later on, you'll need to know precisely what the RAW are and how they work to avoid unnecessary questions ):

* "You implant a message within an object in range, a message that is uttered when a trigger condition is met. Choose an object that you can see and that isn't being worn or carried by another creature."

Magic Mouth is one of those spells, much like Arcane Lock or Continual Flame, which do not have neither an upper or lower size, weight, length, even type ( magical or non-magical ) restrictions, unlike a branch of other object spells which do have them. The choice is yours. But we won't be working with anything magical, what's important here is the absence of size or length limitations.

* "Then speak the message, which must be 25 words or less, though it can be delivered over as long as 10 minutes."

Alright, so you can speak a message ( "a verbal, written, or recorded communication" ) which can be absolutely anything at all much like talking into a microphone, with the only stipulation, that it cannot be something which has more than 25 words. Good to know. The latter part may also be relevant depending on how you use certain things later.

* "Finally, determine the circumstance that will trigger the spell to deliver your message.....The triggering circumstance can be as general or as detailed as you like, though it must be based on visual or audible conditions that occur within 30 feet of the object."

The circumstance we set can be as general or as detailed as we'd like, but needs to be based on "visual or audible conditions that occur within 30 feet of the object". Note, that as per this wording, there are no limitations on said visual or audible conditions. The circumstance is absolutely anything you want, as long as it is an audible or visual condition that occurs within range. The audio can be of any volume, the visual trigger can be blatant or subtle. The enchanted object has no eyes or ears, or some "perception score" aside from RAW says. That as long as the circumstance is a visual or audible condition that occurs within it's range, as detailed or as general as you wanted it to be, the trigger will activate.

Keep all of this very much in mind. Triggering circumstance, as detailed or general as you'd like. Based on any audible or visual condition that occurs within 30 feet of the magical object.

* "When that circumstance occurs, a magical mouth appears on the object and recites the message in your voice and at the same volume you spoke."

Nothing further to add about this part.

* "Duration: Until Dispelled"

All enchanted objects are enchanted permanently, until dispelled.

* "Ritual Tag"

This spell can also be cast as a ritual over 10 minutes, so as not to expend a spell slot.

* "When you cast this spell, you can have the spell end after it delivers its message, or it can remain and repeat its message whenever the trigger occurs"

Finally, we'll close this little practice and move on to the fun stuff with the absolutely most important part of the spell that is the key to everything that comes next. Instead of choosing to end the spell after it delivered it's message, it can remain and repeat it whenever the trigger we have set occurs. The only thing left is the part about a mouth moving if an object has something that resembles a mouth, but that's totally irrelevant for our purposes. Also, each casting consumes 10gp, so creating components for our programming will not be free just like in real life, but nothing too grand ( At least, not until you expand beyond this guide )

Hello World

Great, we know everything we need to about the spell description, now to implement it practically. Much as in real coding, in order to save us all time, we'll first go over the basics, how to translate the spell usage itself into certain components that will be labelled with various terms, and when it comes to more advanced subjects, instead of going over the entire process repeatedly, we'll just refer back to the basic functions, with each development deriving from the other. So let's take a look at what we can create with Magic Mouth, starting really simple:

1. Take three stones, or any three objects you can find. Cast Magic Mouth on all. Set the first one to trigger upon the audible trigger of you saying "Execute", and input the message "Hello World". An then for the spell to end. Take the second one, and place it 30 feet ( or 28, to be sure ) away from the first object. Set it trigger upon the audible circumstance of hearing "Hello World" ( In your voice, if you wish ) and input it with the message "Hello World". Take the third and final stone, place it 30 ( or like 28 ) feet away from the second one, set it's circumstance to trigger upon an audible "Hello World" within 30 feet, and set it's message to "Message Received". Upon speaking - "Execute" near the first stone, and you realize by now that two things happened here. First, we have used one Magic Mouth object to trigger another, with a Transmitter and a Receiver which is the basis of Magic Mouth Plus, and secondly, we activated a recorded message from 60 feet away ( And can go on forever as long as you have 10gp for each 30 feet ), by using a series of objects placed at intervals from each other. This will be called a Relay. ( There are much more efficient objects to use as relays, but that will be the next chapter )

2. Let's try something else. Instead of setting the circumstance of the first stone to activate on "Execute", send "Hello World", and then end the spell, let's go somewhere outside, maybe a forest, and set the trigger ( And recall what we've read about detailed circumstances and an enchantment's visual and audible conditions ) to "Whenever grass stalks are moving" ( Which is pretty much always, regardless of intensity ). Or to whenever the sound of the wind is present ( Which is also always essentially, even at the lowest volume imaginable ) or pretty much any trigger which is an "audible or visual condition" that occurs within 30 feet constantly. Then adjust the settings to repeat the message whenever it's specified trigger occurs. Set the following two stones to do the same, except for their audible circumstance to be "Hello World". What happens now is that the first stone will utter "Hello World" one after the other as soon as the last one is finished, being perpetually triggered, and likewise the third stone is constantly going to receive input from it's second stone relay and utter "Message Received" perpetually. This is a Repeater.

3. But why use stones when it's so unsightly? We can enchant any object. Let's exchange our stones for pebbles, or even tiny grains of matter, though preferably of the durable variety such as stone or metal. These are our Microchips, and will prove useful in more advanced projects.

4. While we're at the task of tidying up our tools, what if we don't want to hear a thousand "Hello World"'s in the 60 feet interval from our repeater, we just want to say "Execute", and for the third stone to then utter "Message Received"? Instead of putting the message "Hello World" into the first and second stones, we'll just whisper, in the lowest sound imaginable ( Yet perfectly registered by the enchantment ), something like "Tiskk" for a brief second. We'll then change the second stone's trigger to be that specific audible sound, instead of "Hello World", and likewise for the third stone. What's that? It now almost seems to all observers that things are going straight from you speaking "Execute" to the third stone answering "Message Received", with silence between. We'll call this a Frequency, which you can create pretty much an astronomical variety of with your voice. ( And since it's mostly used for the relays, you hardly need to remember or ever repeat it, since the transmitter translates voice to frequency, and the receiver translates frequency back to voice ). Though if you ever feel like it, you can always use "Alter Self" ( Transmutation, not Illusion ) to decide the sound of your voice, which by RAW of the spell is entirely up to you decide, but at the very least it's that of any race matching your size ( Aarakocra, Gnoll, etc.. if you're medium )

5. Now, how about two messages instead of one? Unfortunately, we can't get two different messages from the same place, since an enchanted object only records and then verbalizes a single message. ( Or can we now? More on that later ), so we already know how to do so. We just create another transmitter/receiver set with 3 stones ( For our 60 feet communications range ) and place them next to the ones we already have each, with a different frequency for the relays and an input such as "Do you like Icecream" from the transmitter, which causes the third stone receiver to emit "Yes". Alright, cool, we can now say two things from the same place and receive two different answers depending on the audible stimuli we chose, but that should be obvious by now. However, as we assemble more and more Microchips for elaborate constructs, keeping them scattered like this will make it inconvenient and really hard to trace. So we're going to take our now 6 tiny pebble/grain chips, and put each pair ( At the 30 feet intervals ) into some kind of small, but easily accessible ( Or not, depending, more on that later ) capsule or box, which can be pretty much any tiny container you can think of. This helps keep our components tidy, and allows us to create elaborate algorithms made form multiple Microchips that inhabit a single capsule container. Sometimes if needed we can even enchant the containers themselves to do stuff based on the input from the components inside them. But we're just going to call those, simply, Containers.

6. Let's go back to just 3 stones in a row, but set the trigger of each to be the audible circumstance of hearing "Feedback" within 30 feet, and the message to likewise be "Feedback" for all of them when triggered, and then determine that they repeat the message whenever the trigger occurs. So you say "Feedback", it reverberates all the way to the third stone. Yet when the second stone finished it's message of "Feedback" which then activated the third stone, which then recites "Feedback", the second stone just triggered once again, which triggers the first stone to say the same thing when it's finished, which creates an endless feedback loop. Which is different from our repeat which relies on ambient conditions to deliver something repeatedly to the receiver ( third stone ), yet in which the message of that third stone simply emits repeatedly, not affecting the second stone which just repeats it's frequency based on ambient. Instead, this is a Feedback Loop.

7. We're almost done now with the practical principles and ready to move on to things that will actually augment our gaming experience, but it should just be noted that there are many more functions you can make by build upon those basic steps, which won't really be covered here since they're almost as varied as actual coding. For instance, you could create Logic Gates, by say, setting a relay's audible circumstance to only be the particular duet of two repeating relay frequencies at once, in which case it sends out an audible "True Signal" as it's message, and another relay right next to it in a capsule whose audible trigger is something ambient, unless the True Signal is active ( a detailed circumstance ), in which case it sends out it's "False" audio transmission repeatedly until such time as the first one is activated by two frequencies, making that capsule essentially an "AND" Gate. You can do tons of things like this in different ways to suit you purposes.

Advanced Systems

Okay, now that we're off from explaining the spell directly, to using the terms learned so far, let's see what kind of gadgets we can make, which can be used not just by us, but by everyone, and even sold as inventions.

The Earpiece

This is actually not an advanced system, but rather even more simple than all of the above, yet occupies this section since it ties into many of the advanced systems, and has a practical in-game use. We've talked about how the spell has "unlimited perception", since it is a magical enchantment, much like "Detect Magic" ( An effect ) or "Symbol" and so on. As long as something is an audible or visual condition that occurred within 30 feet, it can trigger the enchantment, all other factors aside. This means that in a 30 feet radius, the Magic Mouth enchantment has much higher sensitivity to audible and visual stimuli than you, or any other creature for that matter, does.

Therefore, it is worth to simply attach one, such as an earring or tiny "Earpiece" to your ear, which can be triggered by a circumstance as general or as detailed as you'd like, to give you some kind of whisper whenever a visual or audible phenomena that occurs within 30 feet ( And being on your ear, that means within 30 feet of you ) which either corresponds to some general disturbance, or to some acoustic change in the subtle sound waves of the air ( Almost like passive sonar ), and so on. Much like the spell's example "When a silver bell rings", since it can be as general or as detailed as you want, you could do something like "Whenever a creature makes a sound" or "Whenever a non-humanoid's body is visibly moving" and so forth, allowing you to know whenever so much as a tiny spider skitters nearby. You could of course, also make the earpiece a capsule, each microchip with a different trigger and whispered output depending on what it detects, if one was not enough for various easons.

In fact, setting circumstances based on sound waves or air frequency/movement differences would effectively grant it's wielder a vague "Blindsight" ( Knowing when even an invisible creature has entered the Mouth's 30 feet radius, yet not exactly where, although that can be changed ), as per the description of "Blindsight" about heightened senses, creatures such as bats ( Although the enchantment is passive rather than active ), and so forth, but some might deem this incredibly cheesy. If not, feel free to enchant 12 Microchips, corresponding to clockwise directions, with each one triggered only if the disruption came from a certain clockwise direction, and gives off a message corresponding to it's number. So for instance, "6" only triggers by an audible/visual circumstance to the direct south relative to it's visual position ( Which is inside the earpiece, same as all the others ), and then constantly repeats the message "6" in the ear of the person by it's trigger.

As soon as the hidden creature changes position, say to 8 clockwise, then "6" stops repeating because it's trigger is no longer occurring, while "7" instantly triggers followed immediately by "8". This is one example of how to utilize containers.

Actually on second look, I'm overcomplicating things, the spell description examples themselves say that the spell is "smart" enough to to do something like trigger whenever any creature moves within it's range, just as a fact.

The Alphabetical Model

So remember when I said in point 5 at the tutorial that unfortunately we can't get two different messages from the same place, "Or can we?" - With the power of a container, you can. Not just two, all of them. Probably the crown jewel of Advanced Systems is the Alphabetical Model. It's plain, but incredibly powerful, bypassing the spell's only limitation, as long as you spend the gold on it. All you have to do is take roughly 26 tiny objects, and insert a vocal message in each corresponding to the letters of the alphabet, so "AA" and "Bb-" and so forth ( Including any special sounds you want ), set to trigger on the audible circumstance of you ( or anyone ) making the same sound as that letter, respectively, and set to repeat their message whenever the trigger occurs. Now whenever you say "Hello World", each object starting from "H" immediately triggers in chronological sequence, echoing the same sentence you just said pretty much simultaneously. ( Note that grammar doesn't matter since it's based on sounds rather than writing, so if you say "CAN", then the "E" object will trigger rather than "A" based on the sound, but it will be spelled exactly as it needs to be, since it's pretty much just like a recorder )

The "A message can't be more than 25 words" limitation has just been slaughtered, since each object's message is a letter sound that constantly repeats when triggered. Communication becomes indefinite. Now put 5 more repeater capsules just like that at 30 feet intervals, and welcome to the Telephone Line era. In fact, for privacy, change the circumstantial input of all the relays, and their message ( Except for the first transmitter, and last receiver ) into different frequencies. Now when you activate the letters form the first transmitter container, their respective message are instead low-key audio, and only the last container 120 feet away has the components which are set to receive the triggers in the form of frequency just like all the relays, but vocalize the appropriate letters as their messages.

What are the advantages over a simple message cantrip and for what seems like many enchantings in a downtime for very high sums of gold ( Which we'll reduce soon enough ), not to mention requiring physical conveyors to be placed? Well, for one, anyone can use it, not just casters. Anyone with sufficient gold may opt to buy such a device, or perhaps a kingdom which doesn't have dozens of casters to spare on playing errand boy ( Not to mention the privacy aspect ) for the entire population might want to outfit prominent locations or households with an Alphabetical model. Secondly, it can have a much greater range than similar low-level magic ( Don't worry about cost, we'll talk about it ), and it does not require knowing where a particular target is beyond a barrier, won't be affected by stone or metal placements as long as there is a line, and so on. Furthermore, you don't have to spend an action to talk, in case you want it for something. Lastly, inventing the two-way telephone line ( Naturally if the triggers are the letters themselves without frequencies, then it goes both ways, and if your'e using frequencies, then all you have to do is add a receiver capsule for the sender as well as transmitter, and a transmitter container for the other side ) for the common man in DND is already not too bad, but the Alphabetical Model isn't just for talking. It's for every Voice Command system too.

In "Sending" and "Telepathy", the benefit of being available at much lower level, not expending spell slots ( which runs out fast in Sending and consumes a very high level and only for one creature in Telepathy ) is still there, as well as the accessibility to the common man, and the use in Advanced Systems. The Wizard-exclusive "Rary's Telepathic Bond" which is also a ritual is much more superior, so upon having a Wizard who can cast 5th level spells, your party's communication needs are well taken care of. But that's fine, because this is not primarily intended to be a telephone for adventurers in dungeons, although can be early on if you want it to sometimes.

Cables

So in the tutorial, we started out spending no more than 30-60 gold, however a clockwise earpiece with 12 enchanted objects goes up to 120 gold, while an Alphabetical communications system that goes up to 120 feet is going to cost a whooping 1300 pieces of gold for all the components. Given that a Keep costs 500,000 gold pieces, this might not actually be too much for what is a revolutionary device when sponsored by various interest holders much as rudimentary inventions were in medieval times, or at higher levels, ( And spellcasters can always get gold very easily ), yet perhaps far too much at something like level 3, or for a village, and so on.

Containers and Microchips have many uses, but if going for long-distance transmissions or systems that need to cover vast territory, switching to cables eliminates the cost problem almost entirely. Recall that Magic Mouth can enchant any object, without size limitations. So let's take the Alphabetical Model for example. Instead of choosing pebbles or tiny grains, we'll choose cables, of any length. Say, 120 feet. If we want something more mobile, then the best materials would be something elastic, thin and relatively sturdy like rubber cables, or a resilient thin rope. If stationary, then it could be just a long thin stretch of stone, wood, or metal on the ground, underground, winding around house walls like piping, basically no different than any modern design.

So now with a single, thin 120 feet long cable acting as a letter rather than a series of pebbles, the price for a two-way phone line is always going to be exactly 260 gold pieces in enchantment, with increasing distance only adding to the cost in materials ( So 200 feet cables instead of 120 feet ones, and so on ), and given that it can be as thin as we want it to just as long as it reliably won't break, and made out of some of the cheapest materials around ( Some of which can even be created by spells out of thin air ), or in fact just bundle all 26 of those thin cables into a single Container cable to keep them safe ( Much like with real electricity cables ) and tidy, and it's going to be miles upon miles before even slightly raising that base cost. If you want frequency cables, it will be a bit more expensive since you'd need a transmitter and receiver containers at each end too, but not by much. A single investment of 1040 gold instead of 260, with all additional costs in cable material.

As a bonus, if you used portable materials, you can always move your cables and containers around too should you want to.

Binary

For really major cheapskates, willing to sacrifice comfort for the cheapest prices, you can always make a Binary model instead of Alphabetical model. Instead of 26 cables in a larger cable container, now you just need 2 - You guessed it, the first corresponding to 1 and the second to 0. You can now spend more time sending message in binary instead of letters, for 20 gold plus cable material rather than 260. Which is pretty stupid since both are one-time investments, but hey, languages like these can be of better aid in programming stuff possibly.

You could actually create an extremely swift binary model, though, by having around some kind of paper with something like this - h tt ps://i.pin img.c o m/originals/d0/bd/a1/d0bda14eabd91540753f8ac1068812ab.jpg, and some kind of thin pointy object. Set the circumstances of the "1" Cable to be the visual condition of that object passing over the number "1" in the paper, while "0" activates when you pass it over "0". Now within an instant when you flick your "pen" over a line of binary numbers, it sends out that sequence corresponding to the letter. However it probably means nothing to whoever was on the other side since it was so fast, only another "computer" enchantment could translate it. So set the messages of those cables to be frequencies just because we can as their message when triggered, corresponding of course to their numbers.

Now we need translations for both ends. Now at least we only need receivers on both ends ( Each component messaging a letter if it receives an encrypted binary sequence corresponding to it ), which is going to put everything at 540 gold for a frequency cable, rather than 1040 gold for the Alphabetical one.

The Early Dial-Up Phone

I'd go into more length about this, but I don't want to ramble and there are still a few other important things to cover, so I'll rely on the assumption that if you've read so far, you can probably even figure out how to make a multi-way and not just two-way communication line yourself, without me having to illustrate the concepts. If you're employing silent frequency transmissions, it might be expensive, since you'll need the two containers which translate these back and forth for each person who "owns a phone", but still ( Or hey, maybe not, at this point I myself haven't even delved too far into what could be possible with all the different functions or items or other permanent spells in DND ).

So let's say you have 5 households. Each has an Alphabetical model. Let's ignore frequencies for now, and say we want open multi-ended communication, as if it were a skype chat group. No need for complex programming, since we can just take 5-sides intersection cable and connect it throughout, or just a single regular cable winding through every house. So whenever someone talks in it's vicinity, it repeats it in letters that everyone hears, of course it will be a problem if people talk over each other, but that's also a problem if you were in a skype chat group. And you probably want those cables hanging from the rooftops or 30 feet underground so you don't get conversation from random street pedestrians too ( Unless that's what you want ). Although if you pay the extra expense for frequency cables, that's problem solved. Nobody in the street speaks in the enchanter's precise voice and volume "frequency" of the cables as to trigger them ( Unless they're evil hackers using Magic Mouth/Alter self and stuff to intentionally hijack into the communications, but firewall programming is a topic for another day ), and only the transmitters in the households receive vocal letter input.

So, what if we want the real dial-up phone? Person to person conversations. That's more tricky. You could of course, much like in bad coding, or if it's a small number like 5 here, just make different cable connections with different transmitter and receiver sets for and from each and every house, but that's also pretty expensive. So let's do something more tricky. Any of our objects can be triggered not just by audible, but visual circumstances. So let's invent the On/Off button. We can do this with a single cable.

Make an On/Off button. I mean, an actual button made of matter like on your wall switch which currently does nothing. Or just take carve "On" and "Off" somewhere on a table and grab a stone. Enchant a Magic Mouth component set to trigger in the circumstance of the "On" button being visibly placed as "On" or whenever the stone is placed on an "On" square, and to repeat whenever the trigger occurs. Congratulations on your first button. Pick some kind of specific message as it's frequency to play whenever it's "On". Now open up an household's receiver and transmitter ( If using frequency cables) containers. Remember Logic Gates? This is not really a classic one like the first example, but resembles the concept I guess. Instead of originally enchanting each "letter" object to in the transmitter to trigger when that letter is audibly uttered, and each one in the receiver to trigger upon a certain letter frequency and message that letter vocally, instead enchant both to only trigger if that letter/frequency, along with the background frequency of the "On" Switch, are both audible. Lastly, make the transmitter send out not just it's letter frequencies as it's message, but also another one with each letter unique to that household, which might as well be the same as it's "On" frequency I guess, and also make an alteration to the circumstance of the letters in the receiver - to trigger only when they receive a normal frequency with unique tracer, if it's precisely matching low-key frequency emanates from a magical mouth besides it.

However, let's take it a step further. Make 5 more "buttons", each one numbered from 1 to 5. Leave them alone for now. Currently we have in our Household, these buttons, the On/off one, and two containers with Alphabetical models. A transmitter that translates our words to cable frequency ( And also carried our unique household frequency ), and a receiver that translates cable frequency into words for us. Okay, great. Back to those buttons. Set their trigger to same as the On/Off, whenever you push or place something on them. Set the message of each to the same frequency as that of the transmitter unique frequencies in the various houses.

We're all done. Let's examine what happens. First of all, whenever the On/Off switch is Off, neither the transmitter nor receiver accept any traffic. The transmitter will only accept verbal input accompanied by "On's" frequency, and the receiver will only vocalize incoming traffic if "On" is active. John in House 1 turns his phone on, and calls Lucy in House 4. His voice only reaches the house whose phone is turned on, and let's say Lucy keeps it turned on, she's not asleep or anything right now. Whenever John speaks, the Letter-to-Frequency transmitter relays not just what he says, but also a unique "tracer" noise/frequency unique to his household. Right now, nothing happens either, since Lucy's transmitter transmitters only starts working if it receives a normal letter frequency, and two other matching low-key frequencies of the same kind. If Lucy wanted to accept calls from John, she turned off household's 1 button. The receiver now relays John's voice since it's combined audible conditions are met, and vice versa if John's button allows Lucy to talk.

If someone in Household 3 now turns on a phone and starts talking to himself, neither John's nor Lucy's receivers need be activated, unless he were to talk directly over them. ( simultaneous calls aren't possible with a single cable since all frequency letters are shared, but possibly with multiple cables ), nor would he receive communications from them if his phone was "On", but their numbers were "Off". So this allows for more private, coordinated conversations as long as everyone is playing along nicely. You can put countless safety measure with additional components/programming, you can do simultaneous calls with more cables, but as I've said in the start, I won't write an essay on dial-up phones since there's still much to cover, and you can easily realize how to do so yourself.

Walkie-Talkie Rope

If you're interested in early level party, or just in general, mobile communications that has the different aspects mentioned to it as opposed to Message/Sending, all you really need are earpieces, for the entire party if you want to and have the gold to spend, with a modular alphabetical transmitter and receiver ( Remember that these things can be as tiny as a grain of sand for a component ), and some thin coil of sturdy cable with significant length, either straight or branching from each party member, much like a climbing rope or probably longer than that, since it doesn't need to be that sturdy really. For 10gp ( or 120gp, if clockwise ) more each earpiece will also have a creature/disturbance detector, if you want it to. The cable's enchantment will be 260gp while the material should be next to nothing, but these earpieces do fetch a hefty price though, with 520gp for one alphabetical communicator. So depending on how good you are at getting gold, or if you just got a kingdom's worth for selling these inventions around, it isn't too unfeasible. If going for a Swift Binary model instead, it will be just 540gp for both cable and earpiece, and 520gp for each earpiece after that.

Once you have them though, first of all you'll always be able to communicate at any volume while within 30 feet of each other, or even make a human "chain" of 30 feet for each member with an earpiece. And as for the thin cable coil which really shouldn't hinder anyone very much ( Except maybe for combat, in which case in can just be very quickly ditched and picked up afterwards ), you can communicate over as long as your cable is, like someone advancing ahead in some tunnels or descending into a chasm even miles long, with everyone able to hear him.

Sensor Modules

We already know an enchanted object can functional much like an "Alarm" if you have an earpiece in alerting you to intruding creatures, except it's actually better than alarm. First of all, as enchanted objects rather than effects, Magic Mouths can also be augmented with the equally low-level Nystul's Magic Aura if you needed to disguise it from "Detect Magic" and it's likes for 24 hours. Magic Mouth is also 30 feet cube, rather than 20 feet for Alarm. Best of all, you don't have to spend an hour with ritual preparations to cover a much larger area by spreading out enchantments. With Magic Mouth you can have 10 sensors in a container in your pocket, and bring them out to spread around whenever you need to, retrieving them when your'e done.

But with programming, you can do even more. This level of finesse likely won't be needed for standard adventuring, but when it comes to protecting a lair, city, keep or base, it can prove invaluable. Let's say you have 10 sensors spaced to cover a certain perimeter, trigger by the circumstance of say a creature larger than Tiny moving within 30 feet of them, and sending out a frequency when that happens. Next to them in a container, they have just one more simple relay that accepts this frequency and repeats it, so even if the intrusion occurred 120 feet away from the caster, it gets transmitted through the inner sensors all the way to the earpiece.

But with some gold investment, it can be more specific than that or an Alarm spell. For simplicity, let's make it 9 sensor zones, with the cubes arranged such that they now cover a 90x90x30 ( height ) feet cube. Instead of 2 components for each sensor zone, you have 10 in a container. The first one is a repeater triggered by a creature's movement, and sends out a frequency message unique to it's "Sector", let's just call it "Sector A" for now. The other 9 components are simply relays, each one accepting the intrusion frequency of all other sectors, and relaying it as it's message. The caster's earpiece ( Or an additional module within an existing one ) has 9 receivers corresponding to those frequencies, which emit a message when activated by their respective frequency.

So let's now say the caster is in Sector I, 60 feet away from the nearest border and 90 feet away from the farther side of the Sector A cube, and an intrusion occurs in Sector A. The sensors activates and emit it's frequency. All the "A" relay components in the other sectors such as H,G and so on receive it and echo it all the way to the caster's earring in Sector I, whose receiver set to accept an "A" frequency then whispers "Intrusion Detected in Sector A." and keeps on doing so for as long as the creature is moving there. Furthermore, when that creature leaves the cube of Sector A and enters say, Sector B, or maybe even just teleports straight to D, the sensor in A stops being trigger, and the sensor in whichever place that creature is currently at does, tracking it's progression and informing the caster with the earpiece.

If there were multiple intrusions, all the intruded sectors would also relay their information, albeit it would be confusing for the earpiece wielder since they would be overlapping. This can be solved with some simply delay programming, if you wanted to, but won't be covered to save time.

Once your initial investment is done, you can always carry this container network with you and place it whenever you need to, much like anything else when it comes to Magic Mouth. You can even embed each container along some subtle spider-like lattice that you can spread out, for ease of picking up. As said before, it's probably irrelevant for simple adventuring, but if you need a security system for a very large zone, it's invaluable. Perfect detection and perfect tracking.

Anti-Magic Failsafe

If you're asking yourself whether or not a network like this could withstand a Dispel Magic or an Antimagic Field. The answer is yes to both. If someone were to even discover one of those containers given how small they could be, somehow figure it out for what it is while it can have any appearance ( With something like Detect Magic, and only if you didn't cast Nystul's on it ), it would A. Be too late and B. expend 10 of his level 3 spell slots just to disable every component in a single sector container, given that he has no clue what each grain in there does, only that they're magical, unless he wasted yet more slots trying to Identify each of them, by which time again, ritual or not, it's too late for him since his presence has long since been spotted.

Even if one were to traverse such a network with an Antimagic Field as to essentially be "under the radar" when it comes to magical detection, with Negative Output, he will still be discovered. All you need is a repeater which transmits constantly based on an ambient trigger ( Simplest one being, when it's within visual range of it's own container ) for each sector, and a receiver for those on an earpiece, whose trigger is whenever it hears, pretty much anything, without also hearing that ever-present frequency. We now know exactly when an Antimagic User has infiltrated a sector, hidden or not, and with some programming similar to the ordinary sectors themselves, we can track his movements too as usual.

Only someone extremely intimate with the system might try squeezing between containers with his 10-foot radius sphere as to not shut down any negative output component, assuming once again he knows their position while not being able to do any magic. Even so, it's nothing that two extra repeaters spaced out isn't going to solve.

The Voice of the Deceiver

This is an Alphabetical Model based invention rather than programming, but it's really good. It's Glibness, except at 2nd-level, better, works for everyone, can't be detected, and permanent. As long as you follow the English definition of "Speak". All you need is an Alphabetical model container inside your mouth. Whether it be a golden tooth or a small capsule under your tongue or between your teeth, with each letter set to trigger ( A circumstance as detailed as you'd like ) on the precise movements of your mouth, and outputting as the message the appropriate letter. You can also cast "Nystul's Magic Aura" on each component since they're objects to make them appear non-magical even to Detect Magic.

Now whenever you need to lie under a Zone of Truth while failing your saving throw ( So that the caster believes you cannot lie directly ), you speak absolutely nothing to them, you just move your lips. The alphabetical model plays recorded sounds.

Sound to Matter

I haven't really explored this area too much given I only recently realized the programming potential of Magic Mouth in the first place, but in case you're wondering, there is a way to convert the sound/information transmissions of Magic Mouth into physical actions in order to establish Semi-automatic physical interactions that can be activated from great distances. I won't go over spell descriptions again and leave it to you this time, but we're looking at "Arcane Lock" specifically, which is another "programmable" spell, identical in all the relevant aspects to Magic Mouth. Particularly, lasts until dispelled and "You can also set a password that, when spoken within 5 feet of the object, suppresses this spell for 1 minute." - This is how the conversion happens, although so far I only got semi-manual designs, you need to manually reset them once activated.

The first thing I can think of is traps. Let's say you have a corridor, and a ceiling, with some large empty spaces within that ceiling along the way ( Much like for a classic rockfall trap ), say 4 spaced out from each other, that you place large rocks into ( Through a ceiling vent leading back to your chambers, block and tackle, doesn't really matter right now ). And some kind of sliding door which normally would just cause the rock to force it upon through gravity and fall right through, but which "Arcane Lock" states will lock any closed door or other entryway, regardless if it even has a lock, and make it impassable until broken or dispelled and raises the DC to force it open/break it by 10. Or if you want, you could just have a regular seamless hatch ( as seen from below ) that is by itself too weak not to be forced upon by the weight placed upon it, but only strong enough when it's DC is raised by 10 via Arcane Lock.

Now designate a password for each of those, and just connect say, a regular alphabetical cable inside the walls or anywhere you want in that corridor, probably inside the walls just so it's hidden.

Now whenever you speak any password from the other end of the cable, arcane lock is surpassed for one minute, and that trap falls, not only dealing damage but also physically blocking that path if it's like a large boulder or cube. Advantages over a normal tripping line or the like include not exactly being able to be quickly disabled, hard to detect since there's no visible trigger, only maybe the texture difference for an hatch if someone is somehow able to perceive it, and unlike with normal magical traps ( Such as by sending a summoned creature and so on ), no way to really trigger it, except by trying to break open the hatch. And whoever does so, if that hatch is made of so much as metal, will quickly discover he needs something like a 28 strength check with the raised DC from Arcane Lock, or to both have memorized and waste a "Knock" or Dispel Magic and so on.

But that's really just the first thing which comes to mind. You can also have Semi-Automatic elevators that only need to be maintained every few weeks or so at higher level, but I'll only elaborate on that if it's requested.

Programmed Illusion

This can be a great asset to the Arcane Programmer, although I'll only mention it briefly, since it's much higher level, can't be done as a ritual and is stationary, but at least it does not consume it's component, so it's free as long as you have time to cast it. If you're making stationary lairs or bases, there are many ways in which this can intersect with Magic Mouth ( Which you still need, since you can cast Programmed Illusion only a few times a day, so no dozens of components without spending a very long time, and by the way just as a factoid, a Wizard with Spell Mastery could even cast either Magic Mouth exactly 480 times a day in it's 1 minute form, or 48 times in ritual form, and Arcane Lock exactly 14,400 times a day in it's single action form ), but that will be outside the scope of this guide. I will let you in on two things however:

You can disable it's "10 minutes dormancy" time by creating 3 duplicate illusions overlapping in the same space ( Which you can per RAW and the spell description, that does not require unoccupied space, since you know, they're illusions, and furthermore imperceptible until triggered ), and set the second illusion to trigger on the visual/audible circumstance of the first one ending, and the third illusion to trigger when the second one ends. So basically you now have the same programmed illusion lasting for 15 minutes, and 10 minutes having passed since the end of the first's performance, allowing to trigger once more and continue the cycle.

So this thrice-fold model either has no intervals and simply occurs whenever it's trigger does, or if you gave it a trigger which is always true, it will remain there and perform permanently.

Second tip, a Demiplane can turn a stationary system or gadget within reach wherever you are, at the expense of an 8th level spell slot. Depending on what systems you are creating, this might be wanted sometimes. Personally I'd start with filling the Demiplane with permanently programmed illusions ( Using the three-fold technique ) of a beach with rolling waves on the walls, a pair of virtual Drow strippers dancing in cages, and a soft glow filling the space whenever I enter the Demiplane, with a voice that intones "Welcome, character". Just to set the atmosphere.

S.E.L.E.N.A

Everything described so far can work together. Some lair or city, whether a DM's or a party's, can have a central "command center" overseeing a large zone which has communications channel with cables or containers, a sensor grid, even eavesdropping devices everywhere ( It's just like any frequency phone, except you place tiny alphabetical containers somewhere without an occupants knowledge, until the intervals are long enough that they feed to some street or tunnel cable, or just even continue with the tiny containers someone wants to and has gold, and then whenever something is spoken in that place, it gets transmitted to the listener ), and have password-activated traps that thanks to your sensor grid, you also know exactly when to activate. Speaking of Eavesdropping, at much higher level, you can periodically "Teleport" tiny containers into unwarded areas at intervals too until you can drop one far enough at some spot you could just sit in and listen to all day if you want. Unlike "Scrying", nobody is making any saves, you can listen in all day, and no spell slots will be further wasted, as long as the containers remain in place ( If they're small enough and you didn't drop them directly on a floor, then it's unlikely ). It might prove handy in some circumstances.

You can carry out similar gadgets that are all connected to a central earpiece for mobile purposes. While you're at it, why not make your integrated command receivers be a smug "A.I" named S.E.L.E.N.A, for no reason other than coolness, so you can say "Selena, give me a status report" or "Selena, put me on the line with" or "Selena, play me a song" ( From a playlist container with individual 25-word microchips along with some musical notes emitters ), I'd play this ( h tt ps:/ /w w w.youtu be.co m/watch?v=KNi8aW8Nf6s ) if I were you, I find the lyrics very fitting, and make the "messages" more quirky in a droning A.I voice, just because you can.

Wrapping Up

At it's core, this technique utilizes a spell which can draw audible or visual information either from the environment, or from another linked object, and relay it. Much as with coding, this is just a sample, but creative freedom is in the hands of the players to build what he wants with it, whether it's for flavor or for certain purposes. More can be done than just what's listed ( And some that I said will be added if requested, since this thread is pretty long ), either just by doing things differently, or combining it with other spells, like the other ones listed. For example, as it stands Arcane Lock is the only physical affecting, permanent, audio-triggered spell I could find, which can enable for various semi-manual contraptions, yet it's biggest barrier is that it doesn't produce any "work". If we use gravity to drop something upon a transmission ,we have to use spells or ordinary means to reset the mechanism. But combine it with an engine that can produce work, like a water wheel, and you can now have fully automatic, remote-controlled machinery designs. And since Arcane Lock can likewise enchanted extremely small objects of any type, I'm pretty sure that real engineers or scientists could even create compact automatic interactions based on some environmental conditions, but we'll leave that for now.

Anyway, at the very least, we now have more cool things to do at level 3 with a 2nd-level ritual spell that nobody really thought much of before.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Well done sir. This is now a must spell for any would be magical artificer.

Spoiler

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Thanks. Also a few more additions to the sample list, just to write them down for easy reference:

Emergency Alert - Installed in houses/alleys or even earpieces, set to trigger under the general audible/visual circumstance of a creature making certain sounds of distress or frantic movements, and then relays a message to other emergency sensors within the vicinity. As with the original one, with more components it can also pinpoint the rough location in which the event occurred.

Arcane Detect Poison - Simply set to trigger whenever any poison entered/is visually in the area. Which is a general circumstance that it's indeed smart enough to recognize, much like the official example of "any creature" moving into it's area. Which really only takes a single enchantment and can be worn on one's person or set on a table, so the owner won't be poisoned. At least not without a Dispel Magic, which is going to be pretty hard if someone just constantly carries it around, or at least not without him knowing about it. And since it can be available to everyone for 10gp, sorry poisoners across the realms for the loss of employment.

Pedometer - Objects placed on your boots, or are your boots themselves, that trigger on the visual circumstance of you taking a step, which sends out a frequency message, along with a counter which stores the information by being set to trigger when for instance, the frequency message has been sent a thousand times, or any arbitrary number.

Precision Digital Clock - Pretty sure that I'm programming it more dumbly than it can be, but as it stands will cost 880 gold pieces. you have 24 microchips corresponding to hours, and 60 corresponding to minutes. They are set to trigger based on certain audible combinations. You also have 3 "Counters", each for the hours and minutes, one which is just an ambient repeater. And a single wrist watch or anything else you'd like with an On/Off Switch, enchanted to transmit a certain frequency while it's pushed to "On". Starting with that repeater, which is basically set to trigger constantly. Do some testing with a vocal output of some length, like "Yeah" or even 25 words, and determine how many times it repeated it over what you're pretty sure is a minute, based on finger counting or whatever. Now that we have that number, we no longer need the vocal output, ditch the component and switch it's output to a frequency that starts and finishes within the same length of time ( Finally making some use of that part in the spell description ). Set the "Minute Counter" to trigger whenever it hears that number of outputs in a sequence ( I.E, one minute ), and to send out it's own "Minute frequency" as it's message. So now it's sending out a frequency at intervals of one minute based on it's trigger. Set the message of each "Minute microchip" from 1 to 60 to be a vocal uttering of it's number, and to do so over exactly 1 minute. Set their triggers to be whenever the "Minute Counter" has "rung" for the same amount of times in sequence corresponding to their number, yet not if the message of an higher number has been transmitted within the last minute, or is currently being transmitted ( So 5 does not get triggered again when 10 minute counter ringings have been completed, and this works all the way from 1. Only when 60 is finished will number 1 trigger again. ), but also only in combination with the on switche's frequency frequency. That frequency comes from the "Time Switch" being set to "On".

Okay, now in order not to jumble things too much, let's first see what happens if we wanted to know just how many minutes have passed thus far, such as after we walked for 500 feet. Let's say we the players know that we started at 0 and it's now 15. Component 15 would currently be transmitting a vocal message of "15" over a minute ( Since the Minute Counter has "rung" 15 times, and no frequency of an higher component has been transmitted in the last minute, "minute" which can be describe to a machine, once again, using the elementary minute counter frequency ), were it not for the fact it also needs the Time switch to be On. So only when the wearer turns it On, the message plays, and they hear "15 Minutes"

Same goes for the hours, using the same components. Just that an hour's number 1 rings when the Minute Counter has rung 60 times, extrapolating all the way to 24, with the same stipulation on higher number messages having been transmitted in the last hour. Now just put a slight pause of like 5 seconds in the vocal messages of the minutes before they say "Minute Fifteen" for example, And a slight 5 second delay after the hour messages, and when pressing On, you'll get a message like "15 hour.. 52 minute". If you keep "On" pressed, it'll keep going for a minute, but update the minute after that, and update the hour after an hour has passed. You'll probably just want to turn it off through since it's annoying.

You will also perhaps notice that if the the switch is on "Off", , the number messages never player, but their trigger circumstances still "keep track" of the minute counter clicks. If you were paying attention then you might think it will lead to an overlapping problem since the higher numbers stipulation is not active, but it actually doesn't matter. If you turn it On, remember the "or is currently being transmitted" stipulation? If both 4, 2 and 1 are attempting to play, 4 must be the correct one, and the triggers for both 2 and 1 ( Since trigger and message are simultaneous ) get snuffed out before they even begun since an higher number is currently transmitting. And of course when 2 is the correct one, then 4 still won't be transmitting, and so on.

Keyboard - Hoarse from speaking? Use the keyboard. All it takes is something resembling an actual keyboard with letters and a space bar, and some alterations to the standard alphabetical model. You enchant each button in the keyboard to transmit the right frequency for it's key, so not very different from pebble or cable letters in the output, but enchanted them to trigger upon you pressing them ( visual circumstance ) rather than uttering the same letter. That keyboard is your transmitter, and you only need a receiver container in each end to convert those frequencies into letters in voice. The trick part is that in keyboard strokes, you have pauses between letters, so it's going to sound really broken off, but that is what the space key is for.

You enchant the space bar with nothing, but add an instruction line to all of the other key triggers - instead of the circumstance being when you press them, the circumstance should be for each letter "when pressed, only once only any letter which has been pressed before since the last press of the space bar finishes transmitting it's message, following each time in which the space bar is pressed". So say, you write "Fruits" on the keyboard. Nothing happens. As soon as you hit the space bar to begin a new word, the circumstance for "F" becomes true and it transmits ( been pressed, and following a pressing of the space bar ). On the other hand, the circumstance for R or U has not yet occurred. A letter that has been pressed prior to them since the last space bar stroke ( F ) has not yet finished transmitting it's message. Only when it does can R activate, and so forth to U, all the way to the end, so when you hit space bar, the word got relayed flawlessly. Now upon writing a new word, once again none of the letters will be transmitted, since they have been pressed but need to wait for another pressing of the space bar, and so the cycles goes. The only thing you'll have to do though is purposefully misspell your words so that you use the letters that correspond to the sound of the word, not it's proper writing.

Improved Trap Detector - Once again relying on the spell's "intelligence" to be triggered by a circumstance which can be as general as you'd like ( Such as knowing what a "creature" is and when any one regardless of visual makeup, I.E physicality, has moved within range ), one cann instruct it to trigger upon the general visual condition of a trap being within range. Unlike the 2nd-level "Find Traps", it would do so indefinitely, albeit within 30 feet. Using established precision modules, the location of all traps can also be pinpointed exactly. It will also be able to do what "Find Traps" explicitly can't, which is to detect environmental hazards that are not traps by RAW's definition, such as ( Using the examples in Find Traps ), hidden sinkholes, a natural weakness in a floor, or an unstable ceiling, to some degree, and within a 30 feet cube. Using one or several sensors. For example, a general circumstance could be "when the structural integrity of a construction within range has been visually compromised" which might detect minor cracks for instance. For something like an hidden sinkhole, it might take another component in the same container which detects "When an elevation change of 4 feet or more relative to the surface which is directly underneath the object is within a range of 30 feet", which will inform the wearer if there is a hidden sinkhole directly ahead from the ground he is currently standing on. For natural hazards, such as a cave about to collapse, a sensor might be instructed to be trigger upon an increase in ambient volume from natural formations within range beyond a certain threshold, which would alert you to subtle rumblings and the like ( Also works against lurking burrowing creatures that make noise, as pointed out by another poster ) long before you would first perceive them on your own.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

You assume that the mouth has effectively infinite perception, and no set minimum size of the object it's cast on, despite it needing to be big enough to fit the mouth created when the spell is triggered.

Both are arguable and require ruling at the table, because there's no explicit RAW for them, and your ideas won't work without them.

If the DM rules favorably, it seems it should work, nice (and compact) replacement for the 3.5 necroputer, that no longer works in 5e.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

You assume that the mouth has effectively infinite perception, and no set minimum size of the object it's cast on, despite it needing to be big enough to fit the mouth created when the spell is triggered.

No size is given for the mouth in the spell description, so presumably the mouth would be small enough to fit on the object.

Both are arguable and require ruling at the table, because there's no explicit RAW for them, and your ideas won't work without them.

Can you elaborate? Where does he require infinite perception?

Even if a DM were to rule that you can't cast this on a grain of a sand, which should be legal if you can see it, the principle behind the technique still stands. Maybe you can't have an earring do this, but you could still carry around a case with pebbles in it or something.

To my mind, pebbles are fair game and more in line with raw than any minimum size you would attempt to impose.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

No size is given for the mouth in the spell description, so presumably the mouth would be small enough to fit on the object.

Can you elaborate? Where does he require infinite perception?

Even if a DM were to rule that you can't cast this on a grain of a sand, which should be legal if you can see it, the principle behind the technique still stands. Maybe you can't have an earring do this, but you could still carry around a case with pebbles in it or something.

To my mind, pebbles are fair game and more in line with raw than any minimum size you would attempt to impose.

I would assume that the mouth looks like the caster's mouth, including the size. Not as attempt to break this idea (I mean, I would just ban it outright if I had a problem with it), but because that makes the most sense to me.

Infinite perception is assumed with Frequency "we'll just whisper, in the lowest sound imaginable ( Yet perfectly registered by the enchantment)". The same also assumes the aforementioned whisper is "heard" by the mouth up to 30' distance, with no mention of background noise. Sounds like infinite perception to me.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Holy smokes, someone's discovered House Sivis' next major project. With the infrastructure of the Lightning Rail already in place, these "alphabet capsules" could be set along the route and allow messages to be sent "telephonically" to a different Sivis message station, for a small fee. Allowing the rich and influential to dictate their telegrams to the system may be a major advance for Eberron's communication network. Actually, can we call this telecommunication yet?

Spoiler: Quotes from the Playground

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Originally Posted by JoeJ

In fact, I will here formally propose the Zeroth Rule of Gaming: No rule in any game shall be interpreted in a way that breaks the game if it is possible to interpret that rule in a way that does not.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

I would assume that the mouth looks like the caster's mouth, including the size. Not as attempt to break this idea (I mean, I would just ban it outright if I had a problem with it), but because that makes the most sense to me.

Infinite perception is assumed with Frequency "we'll just whisper, in the lowest sound imaginable ( Yet perfectly registered by the enchantment)". The same also assumes the aforementioned whisper is "heard" by the mouth up to 30' distance, with no mention of background noise. Sounds like infinite perception to me.

Those are your assumptions based off of nothing given by the spell. Also spells aren't creatures with biological limits, they have the perception given and with this spell it is seemingly infinite.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

I would assume that the mouth looks like the caster's mouth, including the size. Not as attempt to break this idea (I mean, I would just ban it outright if I had a problem with it), but because that makes the most sense to me.

That's a reasonable assumption. But the spell tells us what the limits are: must be able to see it, can't be worn or carried by someone. That's pretty open-ended if the idea was it had to be large enough to fit a human-sized mouth on it.

Infinite perception is assumed with Frequency "we'll just whisper, in the lowest sound imaginable ( Yet perfectly registered by the enchantment)". The same also assumes the aforementioned whisper is "heard" by the mouth up to 30' distance, with no mention of background noise. Sounds like infinite perception to me.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by Dr.Samurai

That's a reasonable assumption. But the spell tells us what the limits are: must be able to see it, can't be worn or carried by someone. That's pretty open-ended if the idea was it had to be large enough to fit a human-sized mouth on it.

So how would you treat a Magic Mouth's perception score?

About equivalent to normal human(oid), but propably no perception score. It can react to plainly visible or clearly audible cues, but when actual wisdom (Perception) check is needed (like reacting to a sneaking creature), it autofails. It's not Alarm

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

You assume that the mouth has effectively infinite perception, and no set minimum size of the object it's cast on, despite it needing to be big enough to fit the mouth created when the spell is triggered.

Both are arguable and require ruling at the table, because there's no explicit RAW for them, and your ideas won't work without them.

If the DM rules favorably, it seems it should work, nice (and compact) replacement for the 3.5 necroputer, that no longer works in 5e.

It is less of an assumption than it is a rule, really. The spell description states that you decide what triggers the object, a circumstance as general or as detailed as you'd like, as long as it is an "audible or visual condition" within 30 feet. To say that "The mouth did not trigger, the specified condition was not perceptible enough" is to go against the spell's description which states that the trigger is activated when the given condition occurs. The official example for such a circumstance - "For example, you could instruct the mouth to speak when any creature moves within 30 feet of the object" then seals the deal that the mouth does work exactly that way. It can be instructed to speak when any ( Any size, any type, even the tiniest rot grub or the tiniest, swiftest Quickling ) creature moves within 30 feet of it, regardless of the direction in which that creature came from, regardless if it is sneaking or not, which anything with a perception score cannot simply do automatically. Using that official example precisely, it would not even matter if the creature is invisible or not, as long as it moved within 30 feet. ( We know we can set the trigger to the subtlest sounds, so this is probably the reason, but either way, it is an official trigger example ). The spell most certainly does not "autofail" if a creature is sneaking.

What says that the mouth has determined size? a Quickling has a smaller mouth than a human. The spell description asserts that a magical mouth ( not the caster's mouth ) appears on the object. If it's a tiny object then it's going to be a tiny mouth. In fact the spell tells you that if you cast it on an object that has something that looks like a mouth, then it becomes the illusory mouth, so where is the relation to the caster's mouth? This is not a ruling, it's a rejection of RAW. When you cast the spell on an object, a mouth appears on it. It is not for us to even worry when the rules just inform us that something happens by default.

Neither of those require rulings without directly changing the Rules as Written as laid out in the spell's description.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by Kemptock

It is less of an assumption than it is a rule, really. The spell description states that you decide what triggers the object, a circumstance as general or as detailed as you'd like, as long as it is an "audible or visual condition" within 30 feet. To say that "The mouth did not trigger, the specified condition was not perceptible enough" is to go against the spell's description which states that the trigger is activated when the given condition occurs. The official example for such a circumstance - "For example, you could instruct the mouth to speak when any creature moves within 30 feet of the object" then seals the deal that the mouth does work exactly that way. It can be instructed to speak when any ( Any size, any type, even the tiniest rot grub or the tiniest, swiftest Quickling ) creature moves within 30 feet of it, regardless of the direction in which that creature came from, regardless if it is sneaking or not, which anything with a perception score cannot simply do automatically. Using that official example precisely, it would not even matter if the creature is invisible or not, as long as it moved within 30 feet.

Is invisible creature coming into 30' a visual trigger? Is a creature hidden from the mouth by wall? Creature heavily obscured with Fog Cloud or similar effect? Is "whisper as low as imaginable" audible from 30'? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The trigger isn't creature moving into 30' from the mouth, it's *visual effect* of creature coming into 30'. The spell doesn't suggest it can detect invisible creatures or see through illusions.

( We know we can set the trigger to the subtlest sounds, so this is probably the reason, but either way, it is an official trigger example )

But we don't know that, the spell doesn't say that, only that the trigger must be audible.

What says that the mouth has determined size? a Quickling has a smaller mouth than a human. The spell description asserts that a magical mouth ( not the caster's mouth ) appears on the object. If it's a tiny object then it's going to be a tiny mouth. In fact the spell tells you that if you cast it on an object that has something that looks like a mouth, then it becomes the illusory mouth, so where is the relation to the caster's mouth? This is not a ruling, it's a rejection of RAW. When you cast the spell on an object, a mouth appears on it. That is all.

And when a quickling cast the spell, I would rule that the mouth is quickling-sized.

Neither of those require rulings without directly changing the Rules as Written as laid out in the spell's description.

And neither of my rulings contradicts spell's description. The perception ruling actualy fits the description better than "it can autodetect anything in 30' radius, no matter how obscure".

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

Is invisible creature coming into 30' a visual trigger? Is a creature hidden from the mouth by wall? Creature heavily obscured with Fog Cloud or similar effect? Is "whisper as low as imaginable" audible from 30'? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

From the perspective of speculating on how the official example corresponds with the spell description, one can assume two things. The first, is that Invisibility and Greater Invisibility are a form of Illusion, and since that object is a magical effect and not a creature, there is no reason to believe Illusions work on it ( As if it were to have Truesight ), but the second most likely explanation is that it would detect movement based on subtle audible cues.

At any rate, you should ask that question of Jeremy Crawford rather than me. I am citing the official example - "For example, you could instruct the mouth to speak when any creature moves within 30 feet of the object". A player describes his circumstance precisely with that completely official wording. The spell description says - "When that circumstance occurs, a magical mouth appears on the object and recites the message " An invisible creature has moved within 30 feet of that object. Do you maintain that the object does not trigger? If so, it's contrary to RAW. RAI and assumptions are different story.

Is a creature hidden by a wall - The answer is no, if the object is still within a 30 feet cube of it. Fog Cloud - No. "Whisper is low as imaginable" audible from 30'? Yes, to the object. Much as a spider moving behind a tree into the perimeter of it's 30' feet cube would be a visual condition it can detect, going by the official example.

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

The trigger isn't creature moving into 30' from the mouth, it's *visual effect* of creature coming into 30'. The spell doesn't suggest it can detect invisible creatures or see through illusions.

But it is not. "For example, you could instruct the mouth to speak when any creature moves within 30 feet of the object ". Personal assumptions are not RAW. The spell doesn't suggest that it can, it straight out tells you that it can.

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

But we don't know that, the spell doesn't say that, only that the trigger must be audible.

We don't have to know that. The spell tells us to determine a circumstance. It gives only two limitations - that said circumstance must be based on a visual or audible condition. Is something an audible condition? Let's be even more of a sticklers and go to the official definition of "Audible", which is not "Can you hear it", but rather "Able to be heard"

ht t ps://en.oxforddictionaries.co m/definition/audible

>Able to be heard.
>"‘some ultrasound is audible to dogs’"

Yes, the magical object will react to any low whisper frequency that occurs within 30 feet of it.

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

And when a quickling cast the spell, I would rule that the mouth is quickling-sized.

Your ruling.

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

And neither of my rulings contradicts spell's description. The perception ruling actualy fits the description better than "it can autodetect anything in 30' radius, no matter how obscure".

But they do. When you tell a player who used an official RAW example as his circumstance that "The creature sneaked, the spell autofails, and the trigger does not activate" or that "it was hidden behind a tree when it entered, the spell doesn't work", you're violating RAW directly which states that you can choose a circumstance to be "When a creature moves within 30 feet", and then the part of the spell description which asserts that the spell triggers when the determined circumstance occurs.

Again, any questions about an official example should be directed to WOTC, not me. I do also have to add though that ponderings such as "Something being hidden from the mouth by a wall" are ridiculous in every way possible. You're treating a magically enchanted object as if it had eyes with directional line of sight. It doesn't. To theorize that it's "sight" is a Scrying-like omniscience within it's cube would make far more sense, yet it's still not RAW just like the first one. RAW is that we have a 30 foot cube and the spell triggers based on any audible or visual condition within it.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

You know what? Fine. I've tweeted JC, let's see if he answers.

But again, you're making rulings on how to interpret RAW. Saying that RAW is perfectly clear is false. I'm making different ruling, both are equaly valid (and we're both convinced our interpretation is correct per RAI, so arguing who's right is useless unless JC says something, we're not going to convince each other until then)

I mean, I was about to write "but you're wrong, the trigger must clearly be visible or audible to the mouth, and the description doesn't say anything about the mouth having truesight and perfect detection ability", but that would lead to us repeating our respective arguments for another 5 or so pages

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by Kemptock

This is actually not an advanced system, but rather even more simple than all of the above, yet occupies this section since it ties into many of the advanced systems, and has a practical in-game use. We've talked about how the spell has "unlimited perception", since it is a magical enchantment, much like "Detect Magic" ( An effect ) or "Symbol" and so on. As long as something is an audible or visual condition that occurred within 30 feet, it can trigger the enchantment, all other factors aside. This means that in a 30 feet radius, the Magic Mouth enchantment has much higher sensitivity to audible and visual stimuli than you, or any other creature for that matter, does.

Therefore, it is worth to simply attach one, such as an earring or tiny "Earpiece" to your ear, which can be triggered by a circumstance as general or as detailed as you'd like, to give you some kind of whisper whenever a visual or audible phenomena that occurs within 30 feet ( And being on your ear, that means within 30 feet of you ) which either corresponds to some general disturbance, or to some acoustic change in the subtle sound waves of the air ( Almost like passive sonar ), and so on. Much like the spell's example "When a silver bell rings", since it can be as general or as detailed as you want, you could do something like "Whenever a creature makes a sound" or "Whenever a non-humanoid's body is visibly moving" and so forth, allowing you to know whenever so much as a tiny spider skitters nearby. You could of course, also make the earpiece a capsule, each microchip with a different trigger and whispered output depending on what it detects, if one was not enough for various easons.

In fact, setting circumstances based on sound waves or air frequency/movement differences would effectively grant it's wielder a vague "Blindsight" ( Knowing when even an invisible creature has entered the Mouth's 30 feet radius, yet not exactly where, although that can be changed ), as per the description of "Blindsight" about heightened senses, creatures such as bats ( Although the enchantment is passive rather than active ), and so forth, but some might deem this incredibly cheesy. If not, feel free to enchant 12 Microchips, corresponding to clockwise directions, with each one triggered only if the disruption came from a certain clockwise direction, and gives off a message corresponding to it's number. So for instance, "6" only triggers by an audible/visual circumstance to the direct south relative to it's visual position ( Which is inside the earpiece, same as all the others ), and then constantly repeats the message "6" in the ear of the person by it's trigger.

As soon as the hidden creature changes position, say to 8 clockwise, then "6" stops repeating because it's trigger is no longer occurring, while "7" instantly triggers followed immediately by "8". This is one example of how to utilize containers.

Couldn't we get this precise enough to know the square the creature is in, by adding more Magic Mouths that trigger for varying distances/directions? So if we keep the clockwise directions, we can add distances to them up to the 30ft range. It can tell you approximately where the creature is, enough for you to target the square it is in (or move accordingly to its position).

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Nice. I'm going to get myself a 10-part piece of jewelry that detects creatures within 30' in the cardinal directions plus high and low for flying / burrowing creatures.
100gp sounds like an excellent price for a 30' creature radar.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

You know what? Fine. I've tweeted JC, let's see if he answers.

But again, you're making rulings on how to interpret RAW. Saying that RAW is perfectly clear is false. I'm making different ruling, both are equaly valid (and we're both convinced our interpretation is correct per RAI, so arguing who's right is useless unless JC says something, we're not going to convince each other until then)

By the way, just to further review things, it should be noted that the Oxford Definition of "Visual" is "Relating to seeing or sight.", not even "Able to be heard" as with "Audible". That definition actually explains to you exactly why ( Aside from already knowing by the example that it can ) the object has "Truesight". Could a Pit Fiend see an invisible creature? Then an invisible creature moving is "related to seeing or sight", and as long as something is related to seeing or sight ( A visual condition ), the object can react to it. Once more stressing, visual and audible conditions =/= the caster's eyes and ears.

I honestly have no idea how do you think I'm making rulings on interpreting RAW. A spell description tells me that a player can determine a circumstance based on audible or visual conditions, that the spell activates when the circumstance happens, and then informs me that a player can choose his circumstance as "any creature moving within 30 feet", as a perfectly valid circumstance. So if a creature moves within 30 feet, I'm going to tell him that his spell triggered. Starting to make selections "But if it has an invisibility spell, but not if it's behind something, but not if it's too small, but not if it wasn't loud enough for a human" - those are rulings.

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

I mean, I was about to write "but you're wrong, the trigger must clearly be visible or audible to the mouth, and the description doesn't say anything about the mouth having truesight and perfect detection ability", but that would lead to us repeating our respective arguments for another 5 or so pages

And I'm about to write - "What the hell does it mean to be "clearly" visible or audible to a magical enchantment"?. You are indeed correct about those respective arguments continuing. You're also right that the description says nothing about it having Truesight and perfect detection ability. It instead tells us that it can trigger when any creature moves within 30 feet of it, which is actually more than Truesight since there's no sneaking and no hiding, and it tell us that it can activate based on visual and audible conditions that occur within 30 feet ( And the writers gave their example as something they consider to fit these parameters, regardless of the many ways in which the spell can do so ), and I already referred the English definitions for both words.

Although I wouldn't place any hopes on JC, it was more of a rhetorical advice, since he only even tweets ( about anything ) once every few weeks and answers 1 in a 1000 questions ( Since obviously he doesn't have time ), and usually the shortest, most obvious ones.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by Dr.Samurai

Couldn't we get this precise enough to know the square the creature is in, by adding more Magic Mouths that trigger for varying distances/directions? So if we keep the clockwise directions, we can add distances to them up to the 30ft range. It can tell you approximately where the creature is, enough for you to target the square it is in (or move accordingly to its position).

Sure. We can get a visual/audible accuracy rating in an area only limited by the amount of magical mouths that can be enchanted. That's why I called them sample designs, anyone can modify them in multiple ways.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by Dr.Samurai

Couldn't we get this precise enough to know the square the creature is in, by adding more Magic Mouths that trigger for varying distances/directions? So if we keep the clockwise directions, we can add distances to them up to the 30ft range. It can tell you approximately where the creature is, enough for you to target the square it is in (or move accordingly to its position).

Originally Posted by Kane0

Nice. I'm going to get myself a 10-part piece of jewelry that detects creatures within 30' in the cardinal directions plus high and low for flying / burrowing creatures.
100gp sounds like an excellent price for a 30' creature radar.

Those were my thoughts as well, and one of the reasons I would limit the spell's senses. (I was thinking of motion detector from Aliens)

Anyway, I'm not putting much faith in JC actualy answering, and I've made clear (hopefuly) that the objections are possible rulings, not RAW, so I'll arguing those rulings further until (and unless) I'll get an answer, to avoid spam that would drown out more possible suggestions to improve OP's (admittedly great, if the GM is onboard) idea.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

Those were my thoughts as well, and one of the reasons I would limit the spell's senses. (I was thinking of motion detector from Aliens)

Anyway, I'm not putting much faith in JC actualy answering, and I've made clear (hopefuly) that the objections are possible rulings, not RAW, so I'll arguing those rulings further until (and unless) I'll get an answer, to avoid spam that would drown out more possible suggestions to improve OP's (admittedly great, if the GM is onboard) idea.

Very well, I do think that since it works by RAW most GM's who vouch by it would be on board, and if JC ever answers it should be interesting.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Fantastic work. This needs to go into every artificer's book of tricks. And quite a few wizards.

One the things I've been grappling with while playing my artificer is that I can't actually make magic items when I want them, because there are no rules for doing so. This fills a gap.

A few thoughts to contribute:

A poison sensor is a great idea, but I'm not sure it would be reliable. Primarily you would want to detect poisons hidden in food or drink, but many such poisons have no audible or visual component to detect. You could easily get a false negative result when the poison is dissolved in a drink, for example.

Arcane lock DOES offer power generation, although in a limited sense. Construct a lock that is spring-loaded, with the spring forcing the lock to remain open. Activating the arcane lock will compress or stretch the spring, storing energy. Using the command word to suspend the spell will permit the spring to discharge, opening the lock and releasing the energy stored in the spring. This energy can then be used for other purposes. You'll need good springs. Which you can make with fabricate and smith's tools.

Arcane lock can only switch states once per minute, but with sufficient funding, one could install a set of locks in parallel. For 15,000 gp, a unit of 600 locks in parallel can switch at a frequency of 10 Hz, for example. Further, these locks can be slaved to an energy storage device that does not have a frequency restriction, such as a flywheel or a much larger spring, or can be used to drive a paddle wheel that lifts water to a storage tank at a higher elevation, creating a hydraulic reservoir that can be tapped for energy whenever needed. Your magic mouth circuits can provide the control system needed to operate this power-generation setup.

Likewise, the lock itself can act like a physical switch, for example by putting a prong on the end of its action that interacts with another device. Or put a spring-loaded lock on a gate damming the water reservoir described above. When the gate unlocks, the spring force can lever the gate open, releasing a flow of water.

And of course, you can use this to control the flow of water through a closed piping system. And water in a piping system is very much analogous to an electrical circuit, and can be used to control many other kinds of devices.

Almost as a side effect of developing a system of power generation, we've also invented indoor plumbing, and the mechanism for voice-activated flush-on-demand toilets. On-demand hydraulic flow also makes elevators pretty easy.

Thinking more about arcane lock, I imagine that construction of large/tall buildings would be easier with springlock drivers pushing blocks or carts of heavy materials up ramps. You wouldn't even need MM control for those.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by Kemptock

Sure. We can get a visual/audible accuracy rating in an area only limited by the amount of magical mouths that can be enchanted. That's why I called them sample designs, anyone can modify them in multiple ways.

Well, you were great in your explanation, I'm just a dunce so expect me to ask if various things can work lol.

Originally Posted by JackPhoenix

Those were my thoughts as well, and one of the reasons I would limit the spell's senses. (I was thinking of motion detector from Aliens)

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Fantastic work. This needs to go into every artificer's book of tricks. And quite a few wizards.

One the things I've been grappling with while playing my artificer is that I can't actually make magic items when I want them, because there are no rules for doing so. This fills a gap.

A few thoughts to contribute:

A poison sensor is a great idea, but I'm not sure it would be reliable. Primarily you would want to detect poisons hidden in food or drink, but many such poisons have no audible or visual component to detect. You could easily get a false negative result when the poison is dissolved in a drink, for example.

Arcane lock DOES offer power generation, although in a limited sense. Construct a lock that is spring-loaded, with the spring forcing the lock to remain open. Activating the arcane lock will compress or stretch the spring, storing energy. Using the command word to suspend the spell will permit the spring to discharge, opening the lock and releasing the energy stored in the spring. This energy can then be used for other purposes. You'll need good springs. Which you can make with fabricate and smith's tools.

Arcane lock can only switch states once per minute, but with sufficient funding, one could install a set of locks in parallel. For 15,000 gp, a unit of 600 locks in parallel can switch at a frequency of 10 Hz, for example. Further, these locks can be slaved to an energy storage device that does not have a frequency restriction, such as a flywheel or a much larger spring, or can be used to drive a paddle wheel that lifts water to a storage tank at a higher elevation, creating a hydraulic reservoir that can be tapped for energy whenever needed. Your magic mouth circuits can provide the control system needed to operate this power-generation setup.

Likewise, the lock itself can act like a physical switch, for example by putting a prong on the end of its action that interacts with another device. Or put a spring-loaded lock on a gate damming the water reservoir described above. When the gate unlocks, the spring force can lever the gate open, releasing a flow of water.

And of course, you can use this to control the flow of water through a closed piping system. And water in a piping system is very much analogous to an electrical circuit, and can be used to control many other kinds of devices.

Almost as a side effect of developing a system of power generation, we've also invented indoor plumbing, and the mechanism for voice-activated flush-on-demand toilets. On-demand hydraulic flow also makes elevators pretty easy.

Thinking more about arcane lock, I imagine that construction of large/tall buildings would be easier with springlock drivers pushing blocks or carts of heavy materials up ramps. You wouldn't even need MM control for those.

Thank you, I was actually thinking about this for a long time ( Although yours is far more elegant ), I did entertain the notion of Arcane Lock producing work in the form of pressure ( I originally imagined a wine-skin like container with a zipper that is inflated from pressure, with Arcane Lock likewise producing work by inflating and deflating it ), however, I ran into the problem, which is that ( As you can tell from recent exchanges ), I must first ensure that a design adheres to RAW with atomic precision.

Therein we run into a problem. Arcane Lock, a magical spell, tells us what it does ( Locks a closed entryway, makes it impassable until broken or dispelled, and raises the "DC" to break/force open/pick any locks on it by 10 ). First of all the question is if Arcane Lock can be cast on an actual Lock, seeing as how it lists - "You touch a closed door, window, gate, chest, or other entryway", and only specifies that it makes existing lock on the selected object more difficult to pick. Also, the chosen object must be "closed" when enchanted, so if the lock starts in an open position, we can't cast Arcane Lock on it to begin with. Then we have the problem of Arcane Lock's method of locking something not necessarily being related to physics, as it is, an Arcane Lock after all, from the school of Abjuration. For all we know it "locks" something by creating some kind of weird Abjuration Ward-like ward around it that functions in mysterious ways.

So in other words, assuming we can directly enchant a lock, we don't actually have any RAW to inform us what happens to something which is already placed within the spells area, that is meant to be impassable ( Or very difficult to break, at least ). Do we have any way to address both of those questions purely through the spell's description? Otherwise it would have to rely on DM jurisdiction.

Parallel locks to disable their delay ( Much as with a thrice-fold illusion ) is perfectly valid however. In fact this can also be integrated with something I've been thinking about how to do for a while now, but at a much faster rate:

Visual Output - The basic design is this ( h ttp s://i.imgur.co m/Yryq3UZ.png ), ( Remove spaces from link). It was actually much more difficult than I thought since many of the elements here are designed for the sole purpose of conforming to the spell's direct RAW. The diagonal surface declines yet upright gates, and so forth. Basically, first of all this picture should be viewed as a much smaller size, but not too small, something like an Ipad's size perhaps. We have a "screen", the square frame. Imagine it as just being a transparent pane of glass. Behind it, ( or inside, if you imagine it as a transparent box ) we have the sloping diagonal "bowling lanes", which are just flat declined surfaces, "fenced" of course, that balls can roll down on. Each one connects to a chute that small balls can be dropped into.

However, in the middle, there is a divider ( represented by the thin yellow line ), much like in a highway. So we have the north lane, and south lane, for each one of those bowing lanes in the picture, and the chutes themselves are likewise divided, so that we can either drop balls to the north or south lane. At intervals, along both the north and south lanes at each line, we have small "gates" enchanted with Arcane Lock ( which are in an upright position, but still blocking the path, and hinged like self-closing bar doors, whenever something enters through them, they swing back to their closed position once it's passed. This is unrelated to the Arcane Lock, it's actually what should happen without it, just as with real bar minidoors ). Starting in their closed position ( Since nothing crashed through them yet ), we enchant them with Arcane Lock to become locked and impassable until the spell is surpassed.

Now, it's pretty simple, we drop down a ball, it rolls all the way until the space in front of "Gate 0" in the picture and stops there. When we utter a password to surpass the lock on that particular gate, in the particular side of the lane, the balls forces it open, continues rolling down to 1, while Gate 0 reverts back to closed, and 1 minute later, arcane lock reasserts it's lock on it once again. After one minute, we can drop another ball and it once again stops at the locked Gate 0.

Each side of a cute which corresponds to north/south lanes per line only gets inserted with a specific ball color. Say, black balls for north chutes and lanes only, and white balls for south lanes and chutes only. So now we know that using Arcane Mouth, we can create an automatic mechanism that does something like, starting it's "arrangement" from space number 10 ( By opening all gates up to 10 ), put colored balls in a certain sequence for the depth perspective of the observer looking through the pane. So say, we have 5 of those divided bowling lines. We can cause a vertical sequence of "White, black, black, white, black" by opening all the gates at the appropriate side of the lane throughout all of them, then wait a minute, before opening all of them up to 9 for a different sequence, or even just one of them.

So we get a certain very vague "frame" with balls filling every space following 10 minutes, which can be automatically sequences. We can even tag such frames, or individual sequences in lane, with a single word, and magic mouth circuits will execute it in order through the Arcane Locks placed along the lanes, so that the color sequences is how it needs to be from the glass pane. Whenever we need to reset the frame, once every 10 minutes, we just open a regular downward chute as depicted to the right ( Yet also for each lane ) which empties out all the balls.

So a major downside here of course, is that we only have a frame per 10 minutes, in order for the Gates to be locked again as to allow for proper placement of the next ball. With something like you said, albeit with massive amounts of gold, this can be rectified. The second problem is once again a gold problem, which is that we don't get much variety with only 5 of those lanes like in the picture. When reaching insane theoretical sums of gold however, it can essentially be a black and white pixel system.

And third problem, although I minimized it as much as possible no matter how many lanes we have ( Since gravity and locks do all the work ), is that we need to refill the chutes with colored balls/grains ( at micro pixel scales ) when the system reset. Granted, it takes a laughable amount of "work" on our part to just pick a bunch of colored pebbels/handful of colored sand and drop it down a chute for the Ipad display, but still makes it semi-manual. ( Until we can figure out if the springlocks are irrefutable RAW )

Originally Posted by Dr.Samurai

Well, you were great in your explanation, I'm just a dunce so expect me to ask if various things can work lol.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

A minor problem that I noted with the frequencies:
Let's say we have 5 stones: A, B, C, D, and E.
A is a transmitter that outputs "beep".
B, C, and D have the condition(s) of "when the sound 'beep' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'beep'".
E is a receiver that reacts to the sound "beep" being created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft.

They are arranged in a line, with each stone being 30 ft. from the next stone in the sequence.

A triggers, and outputs "beep".
B responds to A's "beep", and outputs "beep".
C responds to B's "beep", and outputs "beep".
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
E reacts to D's "beep", and C responds to B's "beep", outputting "beep" in response.
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
E reacts to D's "beep", and C responds to B's "beep", outputting "beep" in response.
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
E reacts to D's "beep", and C responds to B's "beep", outputting "beep" in response.
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
E reacts to D's "beep", and C responds to B's "beep", outputting "beep" in response.
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
And so on.

This problem can be fixed by changing the setup of the stones to the following:
A is a transmitter that outputs "beep".
B has the condition of "when the sound 'beep' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'beep'".
C has the condition of "when the sound 'beep' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'boop'".
D has the condition of "when the sound 'boop' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'boop'".
E has the condition of "when the sound 'boop' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'beep'".
F has the condition of "when the sound 'beep' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'beep'".
G has the condition of "when the sound 'beep' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'boop'".
H has the condition of "when the sound 'boop' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'boop'".
I has the condition of "when the sound 'boop' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'beep'".
J is a receiver that reacts to the sound "beep" being created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft.

The cycle of "BCDE" can be repeated indefinitely, as shown by the inclusion of F, G, H, and I. Only two words, "beep" and "boop", are needed for this process to work.

Last edited by ATHATH; 2017-10-22 at 05:40 PM.

Originally Posted by Honest Tiefling

Is this a good OJEBUWIP WHAT IN THE NINE ABYSSES, or a bad OJFBUEWIP WHAT IN THE NINE ABYSSES?

Originally Posted by Kid Jake

"Oh no, I'm bleeding out of my eyes...it's only now that I see that the delivery fee isn't a substitute for tipping your pizza guy!"

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by ATHATH

A minor problem that I noted with the frequencies:
Let's say we have 5 stones: A, B, C, D, and E.
A is a transmitter that outputs "beep".
B, C, and D have the condition(s) of "when the sound 'beep' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'beep'".
E is a receiver that reacts to the sound "beep" being created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft.

They are arranged in a line, with each stone being 30 ft. from the next stone in the sequence.

A triggers, and outputs "beep".
B responds to A's "beep", and outputs "beep".
C responds to B's "beep", and outputs "beep".
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
E reacts to D's "beep", and C responds to B's "beep", outputting "beep" in response.
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
E reacts to D's "beep", and C responds to B's "beep", outputting "beep" in response.
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
E reacts to D's "beep", and C responds to B's "beep", outputting "beep" in response.
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
E reacts to D's "beep", and C responds to B's "beep", outputting "beep" in response.
B and D respond to C's "beep", and both output "beep".
And so on.

This problem can be fixed by changing the setup of the stones to the following:
A is a transmitter that outputs "beep".
B has the condition of "when the sound 'beep' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'boop'".
C has the condition of "when the sound 'boop' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'bap'".
D has the condition of "when the sound 'bap' is created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft. other than this one, output 'beep'".
E is a receiver that reacts to the sound "beep" being created by a magic mouth spell within 30 ft.

Note that the pattern of B, C, D can be repeated indefinitely with other stones until the message reaches its destination; only the sounds "beep", "boop", and "bap" will be needed.

Yes, that's actually the described feedback loop more so than a problem. That solution is indeed what unique frequencies are for systems like the Dial-Up phone, Alphabetical model with a different frequency for the various letters, and so on ( In a cable it's not an issue, since each letter is a single unique relay along any length of cable ).

In the original tutorial example, in which we had 3 stones, it actually wouldn't matter. the Input for A is "Execute", it's output is the frequency. Only for Stone B, both the input and output are that frequency, which can only be transmitted by A. Stone C, the receiver, only accepts that frequency as input from Stone B, but outputs "Message Received". So in the tutorial example, only B is a dual relay, while A is the frequency transmitter and C is a frequency-to-voice transmitter, so there was no need to account for feedback loop there. But this looks like a very efficient programming method for long-distance/multiple container transmissions that doesn't require a vast array of unique frequencies.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

And so Strahd installed an automatic wiring system into his castle. I feel sorry for my players now.

On the system -- this is an amazing way to use an oft-overlooked spell, and I am quite impressed. Are modern electronic circuits completely replicable like this? If so, would it be possible to build a Turing-complete computer in this way? You already have a system of inputs and outputs, but I'm not sure whether the internal structure is viable.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

Originally Posted by Wondermndjr

And so Strahd installed an automatic wiring system into his castle. I feel sorry for my players now.

On the system -- this is an amazing way to use an oft-overlooked spell, and I am quite impressed. Are modern electronic circuits completely replicable like this? If so, would it be possible to build a Turing-complete computer in this way? You already have a system of inputs and outputs, but I'm not sure whether the internal structure is viable.

I have no idea, it would probably take a chief computer scientist to answer that question. Without physical interactions unlike electricity, and no visual interactions, then any modern appliance which utilizes those will naturally not be possibly to be replicated, although as added later on, "Arcane Lock" might be able to substitute those semi-manually, which brings me to something else, what Jiriku has proposed and I responded to. I think I may have found a way to design the coveted springlock battery, with perfect adherence to RAW, but I am not sure if the physics check out. This is the illustration - ( ht tps://i.imgur.co m/P6WLUfZ.png )

We have a "battery"-like container with two horizontal gateways, which start out in the closed position and therefore we can enchant with Arcane Lock. We then insert a highly compressed spring underneath the lower, currently impassable and locked gateway, which is not strong enough to force open with the Arcane Lock ( But can easily do otherwise ). We also close and lock the upper gateway in the battery, and finally place some kind of projectile on top of the lower gateway, which once again does not force it open downward, since it is locked. The projectile should fill out about half the space of the container. Then we just seal the contraption completely, no more manual work, since it should in theory become automatic soon enough.

First, we password-activate the upper gateway, causing the spell to be surpassed. after a certain, very specific length of time within the minute in which it is surpassed ( Let's randomly imagine it is 52 seconds ), a period of time that we know it would take our ball to complete a process upon the very second in which that minute has passed, which is to be launched upward, pushing open that hinged gateway, entering the space above it, and for those gateway doors to swing back down the position where they are closed once the ball passed through them, after exactly that period of time has passed since surpassing the upper gateway initially, we release the lower gateway.

What is expected to happen is for the coiled spring to then bust through the lower gateway, send the ball jettisoning upward all the way up as it pushes open the flimsy ( while unlocked ) upper gateway, which quickly swings back down, yet as soon as it's bar-style doors reach equilibrium in position, in that exact moment Arcane Lock re-asserts itself, and the ball which is now pulled back by gravity is halted by the locked upper gate way.

Meanwhile however, the lower spring is now sticking out through the lower gateway, keeping them open, which will prevent arcane lock from re-asserting again. However, now that the upper gate closed, it can be password-surpassed again. So the using exact timing it would take to fall back down, push down on the now diagonally jarred doors with it's gravitational momentum which push down on the spring until they are in equilibrium then for the arcane lock to immediately activate ( Before the spring overcomes the initial momentum deliver by the ball's pressure ), we surpass the upper gate, allowing that process to happen, which should revert the entire thing back to where it originally was.

This is the only way I can think of to make a fully automatic "Springlock" mechanisms which is an arcane-powered motion machine. But it depends on a whole assortment of factors like velocity, object density, the spring's force, force calculations, and I don't know what else, so I need someone with more expertise to review the design. If it is, then the path not just to electronics, but to machinery, has been paved.

Re: The Arcane Programmer Guide ( Official Rules Technique )

The problem here (I believe) is that any attempt to build a self-resetting mechanism that also does something useful is a violation of the first law of thermodynamics, since the energy of the initial and final states of the mechanism would be equal and work would have been done. Arcane Lock is only capable of storing potential energy and can't generate any by itself, so it won't be able to do so by itself. Essentially, we're trying to build a perpetual motion machine here, and I'm pretty sure it's not possible without the ability to generate energy from nothing. Magic can do that, but I'm not seeing a permanent way by strict RAW.

Should the DM allow Arcane Lock to close things that have been opened, then this is certainly possible because it now gains the ability to do work. Building Arcane Lock + Magic Mouth-based "batteries" is possible, but they won't be rechargeable without mechanical work. Finding a way around that pesky First Law is what we'd need to do this.